The Capo's Surgeon

I was five months pregnant and the top underground surgeon for the Chicago mafia.

On Christmas Eve, I was called in to perform an off-the-books C-section on a VIP patient.

But through the operating room glass, I saw my mafia boss husband, Julian.

He wasn't there for me. He was slamming his fists against the door, screaming in desperation for the bleeding mistress on my table.

"I swear on my life I will marry you, Lyla. Just hold on."

I delivered his illegitimate son while he completely ignored my existence, kissing her knuckles with a reverence I thought was mine alone.

The nightmare didn't end there. When I returned to our cold penthouse, I had my prenatal vitamins tested.

They were laced with black-market hormones designed to cause severe fetal deformities and force a late-term miscarriage.

Julian, the man who once took a bullet for me and swore a blood oath to protect me, had been secretly poisoning our unborn child.

His entire family had been covering up his four-year affair, praising the mistress while using me as a convenient shield.

How could the fiercely protective husband I loved be the very monster plotting to destroy me from the inside out?

The last shred of my affection for the Capo instantly turned to ash.

I calmly booked a discreet termination, drafted ironclad annulment papers, and walked out to build my own empire.

---

Chapter 1

Serena POV

Five months pregnant with the Chicago syndicate heir, and my gloved hands are buried deep inside another woman's body. I am performing an off-the-books caesarean when the sound of my husband's voice shatters the corridor's sterile calm.

He is screaming, not for me, but for the mistress whose blood is slick on my instruments.

In that instant, the acid in my stomach surges into my throat. I smell the acrid, rusty scent on my own latex gloves, more potent than the patient's blood, and understand that the man who swore a blood oath to protect me is the very reason my life must be razed to the ground tonight.

The air in the underground clinic is thick with the cloying vapor of iron and the sharp bite of isopropyl.

My surgical mask, damp against my lips, does little to conceal the tremor in my own breathing.

The woman on the table lets out a low, guttural moan, her head thrashing against the headrest.

I do not know her name, only that she is a VIP patient brought in through the mafia underground system.

His voice is a muffled roar against the sound-dampening glass of the operating room door. Julian. A Caporegime who, only last month, crushed the life from three cartel bosses with his bare hands, all, he claimed, to secure a future for our child. The same man who once let his own blood pool on the ground to seal an oath of devotion to me.

Now, his body slams against the plate glass, the shoulder pads of his Brioni suit deforming with the impact. His forehead is pressed hard against the cold pane, a circle of condensation blooming from his breath as his voice bleeds through the seals, thick with a desperation I have never known.

"I swear on my life I will marry you, Lyla. Just hold on."

For a single, suspended moment, my hands cease their work. The scalpel in my grip feels foreign, its familiar weight suddenly a dead thing against my fingers.

"Doctor, we're losing the fetal heart rate."

Sienna, my surgical nurse and best friend, speaks from across the table. Her voice is a blade, cutting through my paralysis, her gaze fixed on the frantic dance of the monitor's green line.

I blink the sweat stinging my eyes and force my hands to move.

I cut through the final layer.

I lift a slippery, wailing infant into the world. His cry is a raw, living thing in the sanitized air.

Sienna receives the newborn, her movements swift and sure as she carries him to the warming station. The intercom crackles, carrying the child's first full-throated cry into the hallway. The impact against the glass door resumes, harder this time, a frantic, muffled pounding. But the electronic locks hold. He is a captive audience on the other side of the window as I begin the slow, methodical work of suturing the layers of his mistress's abdomen. I smell his cologne-the familiar notes of cedar and tobacco-even through the door seals, a scent that makes the muscles in my own neck tighten. With each pass of the curved needle, I focus on the clean entry, the slight resistance of the fascia, the perfect alignment of the edges. I do not look up. Not once. Only when the final dressing is taped in place and the sterile field is cleared do the electronic locks on the operating room door disengage with a heavy thunk.

Julian shoves his way into the room, the door swinging back to hit the wall with a loud crack.

Two junior nurses move to intercept him, their hands raised to maintain the sterile perimeter.

He does not look at the medical staff.

He does not look at the surgeon who just saved two lives.

He rushes to the edge of the gurney, his expensive leather shoes smearing a trail through the blood on the floor tiles. He does not kneel; he leans over the barrier, his body a tense arc of possession.

He grips Lyla's hand, burying his face in her damp hair, his shoulders shuddering with a single, violent tremor.

"You did it, baby. You gave me a son. I love you so much."

I stand at the foot of the table, my gloved hands held up in the air, the blood on them beginning to cool and feel tacky.

The harsh surgical lamps bleach all color from his familiar face, carving out the lines of a tenderness I had believed was mine alone.

This is the same man who kissed my forehead five hours ago at the Family's Christmas Eve dinner, his hand resting on my own swollen belly.

He had played the part of the fiercely protective husband.

He had shielded my pregnant belly from the Elders, intercepted every whiskey toast, and told the entire syndicate how much he adored his wife.

Now, he presses his lips to the pale forehead of his mistress, a gesture of such quiet, reverent finality it stops the air in my lungs.

Behind me, the junior nurses are whispering. I can feel their gazes, not on me, but on the tableau of the devoted mafioso, admiring his capacity for softness.

A cold dampness spreads across the back of my neck, the sterile air suddenly feeling thick and unbreathable.

"Congratulations on the birth of a healthy baby boy."

My voice comes out from behind my surgical mask, a flat, toneless thing that seems to come from across the room.

Julian does not even turn his head to acknowledge me.

He just keeps holding her hand, pressing his lips to her knuckles, one by one.

Sienna wheels Lyla and the baby out of the room toward the secure recovery ward. The rhythmic squeak of the wheels recedes down the corridor, leaving behind only the low, electronic hum of the heart monitor.

I walk to the scrub sink and peel the stiff, bloody gloves from my hands, and drop them into the biohazard receptacle.

Sienna comes back in and pulls down my surgical mask.

Her own face is etched with deep concern as she studies mine.

"Serena," she says, her voice low. "There's no color left in your face. Are you alright?"

My mind flashes back to the moment I told Julian I was pregnant-the split second of cold calculation in his eyes before the requisite smile was fixed in place. His suggestion that I rid myself of the 'complication,' cloaked in false concern for our safety in the life.

I walk out of the operating room and pass the secure recovery ward. I hear my own surgical clogs make a sticky, slapping sound on the corridor tiles, and feel a muscle in my left leg begin to twitch in a faint, uncontrollable spasm.

Through the glass, I see Julian and Lyla on the hospital bed. He is holding their child, his gaze fixed on the infant's face with an intensity he once reserved for me, back when he would frown if I so much as took an extra sip of cold water.

I turn away and walk out the back exit into the raw Chicago winter, the first sharp sting of a snowflake on my cheek a welcome distraction.

I climb into the passenger seat of Sienna's armored SUV.

Sienna gets in behind the wheel and the heavy lock bolts slide into place with a definitive chunk of metal.

"Where to, Serena?"

I stare out the bulletproof window at the falling snow, my own hand coming to rest, not on my stomach, but on the cold glass that separates me from the city.

"Book me a discreet termination."